What Happens Now
by shopgirl1997
Summary: Red visits Lizzy in the hospital.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the Blacklist… unfortunately.

A/N: This is set immediately after the latest episode, "Mr. Gregory Devry, No. 95", Reddington goes to visit Lizzy in the hospital.

RedPOV

She was asleep when I first entered her room, which was a good thing because, though I braced myself for injuries, I was not expecting to see her face swollen and discolored, and I could not control my reaction.

My breath rushed out of me loudly, quickly, my heartrate increasing in both strength and tempo, causing me to become lightheaded. I felt as if I were about to have a heart attack.

Raymond Reddington, the Concierge of Crime, dying from a heart attack.

I would have found it rather amusing if I was not staring at my daughter in a hospital bed, bruised and seemingly broken.

I am still standing in the doorway when a short, dark skinned nurse walks up to me and hands me a file- Elizabeth's medical report; I'd have to thank Kate later for this. I settle down in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a corner of the room, the chair furthest away from the occupied bed, and open the file. The light was barely bright enough for me to read.

 _She was found on the ground in a parking lot, barely responsive due to drifting in and out of consciousness._

 _Swelling and bruising on her face was already evident, her breathing shallow, suggesting a chest injury. Her blood pressure was high, but her pulse was strong and steady. She was responsive to her pain when conscious._

 _She suffers severe contusions, mostly on her chest and abdomen. No signs of organ damage or internal bleeding._

 _Three broken ribs._ Ouch.

 _The fetus is perfectly healthy._ I stop breathing when the words sink in, rereading them over and over again. _The fetus is perfectly healthy, no permanent damage is expected._

 _The fetus._ A baby.

Lizzy's baby.

I look towards the bed again, watching the blonde woman, who I often still saw as my brown-haired little girl. Her breathing, though faster and shallower than I would like, was not uneven. The machine by her bedside showed a strong, healthy pulse and a blood pressure that was closer to normal, but still slightly high.

I walk up to her, drag a chair closer to the bed so that I sat by her shoulders. I tenderly picked up one of her hands, noting that they, as well as her forearms, also sported darkening bruises. My gaze landed on her face, her left cheek and eye were a purple-red color and swollen. She had a cut on her lower lip.

Her eyes fluttered under her eyelids. The hand I was not holding was draped delicately over her lower stomach, as if she were sheltering the life growing in her beneath her palm.

She'll be okay. Very uncomfortable, but okay. Her child was okay. I could be content with uncomfortable and okay for now, but I'm fairly certain I'll shoot Tom sometime in the near future.

A/N: This was fairly short, but if you guys would like me to continue with this, I would. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!


	2. Chapter 2

"How is she, Raymond?" Dembe asked, walking further into the room. I looked up into his eyes, smiling softly when I saw them flooded with concern. Because of his past, Dembe tends to avoid forming close relationships, he would smile and nod with my associates because it was what the job sometimes required. Outside of his daughter, granddaughter, and I, he didn't have any friends, unless you counted our cat. Even for the first few years working with the FBI, he kept everyone at arm's length; he genuinely liked Elizabeth, and he was there for her when she needed somebody and I was unavailable or she wasn't talking to me, but he made sure to never get too close. That seemed to change after he saved our lives in the plane hangar, after he came back to us when the wound in his side was stitched up. Lizzy took on the role as his travelling nurse, forcing him to eat nutritional foods instead of the ice cream he asked for whenever we passed an ice cream shop, and keeping his incision clean and bandaged. They had often bickered like siblings, and it never failed to put a smile on my face.

I look back at her bruised face, her mouth forming a frown even in sleep. "Multiple contusions covering, well, everything, three broken ribs," I respond, my voice an airy whisper. Then, my mouth opens and closes as I try to say the words that had been repeating in my head from the moment I read them.

"Raymond?" He prompts, ducking his head to catch my attention.

"She's pregnant, Dembe," I manage to say, and it stirs up a strange mix of emotions. I tear my eyes away from her, turning to look at him, the shock on his face probably mirroring my own. He is about to respond when Lizzy starts to take a deep breath, only to exhale sharply, her ribs no doubt protesting. Without looking at the man on the other side of the bed, I softly say, "go see what they have in the cafeteria that's edible."

"Red?" Her voice cracked, my gaze travels back to her and I find her eyes filling with tears. She looks terrified.

My hand tightens around hers, "I'm here," I'm quick to reassure her. "What happened, Lizzy?"

"I was shopping and I noticed a guy seemed to be following me; I didn't think much of it, maybe I was being paranoid, or he was one of your guys you hired to shadow me. He got to me when I was getting into my car, so there was no one around. He knocked me to the ground and started kicking me. I don't know how long he was there, I passed out pretty quickly. Next thing I knew, I was laying in the back of an ambulance," she was speaking so softly that I had to lean closer to her to hear her properly, her words pausing often so she could take a shallow, painful breath.

I sigh. When we had finally Exonerated Lizzy, I started to put together a sort of protection detail for her; I knew that there were people who wholeheartedly believed she was guilty, and I knew some of those people would try to take matters into their own hands after their government failed to punish her as they saw fit. Then I remembered how much Elizabeth hated my people watching her every move, and I decided not to go through with it without telling her about it first. If I just had at least one person there for her, she wouldn't be here right now; there wouldn't be a single bruise on her body.

"Red, I have to tell you something," I hadn't thought it possible, but the scared expression on Lizzy's face only intensified. She squeezed her hand from my grasp and settled it over her stomach with her other hand. Her fingers twisted around each other nervously, and she studied them as she spoke, "I'm pregnant."

"I know."

Her blue eyes widen as they turn on me, "How do you know? Wait, never mind, I probably don't want to know," Lizzy looked down at her stomach, stroking it softly with one hand, "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"The important thing is that the baby is okay," I lay my hand over her smaller ones, stroking my thumb across her knuckles. I make sure to catch her eye, my next words serious, "Lizzy, you will not be alone in this." The tears she had held at bay slid down her face in silence as she nodded, grabbing a hold of my hand tightly.

Dembe returned ten minutes later, immediately returning Elizabeth's small smile, a medium sized paper bag in his hand. "They didn't have anything you would have liked," he said to me as he passed the bag over, "so I went to the café across the street."

"Thank you, Dembe," I say, opening the bag and inhaling the smell of pastries, "these smell delightful."

A/N: To be honest, this came out entirely different than what I had planned, but I am actually happy with how it turned out. Let me know what you guys think! Also, a huge thanks for all of your wonderful comments, you have no idea what they mean to me.


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